


Unconventional Hiring Practices

by Querulousgawks



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:58:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: In this universe, Adam Birkholtz wouldn’t be a superhero, but hewouldbe fresh out of the AHL and toting his 2-year-old economics degree hopefully around New York City.





	Unconventional Hiring Practices

**Author's Note:**

> The dubious fruit of reading too much Tony/Pepper fic, and wishing they were given something closer to equal weight in canon. Less like a manchild and his exasperated nursemaid, and more like, you know. Bros.

In this universe, Adam Birkholtz wouldn’t be a superhero, but he _would_ be fresh out of the AHL and toting his 2-year-old economics degree hopefully around New York City. Interviews in the accounting departments of every possible massive corporation weren't doing much for that hope, but the last one was uneventful, at least, and he only got a little bit, understandably, non-humiliatingly lost looking for the men's room. He awarded it an extra couple of points for navigability.

Uneventful, he thought, until he saw the dude hyperventilating in the corner of the bathroom, surrounded by men in suits who didn't seem to be doing much but wringing their hands or checking the creases in their slacks. Which, seriously? Didn't massive corporations have training for this kind of things? The _AHL_ had training for this kind of things. Adam used his leftover defenseman looming skills to throw out the gawkers, and crouched down, a _reasonable_ distance away, on the shockingly clean floor (couple more points). Silently, he passed over a wet napkin, then a dry napkin, and then his water bottle, tastefully decoupaged with the cast of 30 Rock.

“This is creepy,” the guy said after a little while. He hadn’t really uncurled from the fetal position, just tipped himself upward so he could take a drink with one hand while keeping his other arm firmly around his drawn-up knees. He was still shaking, and when Adam put a hand on his shoulder to help him rotate vertical, his suit felt soaked through with sweat, but his voice was steady. “I mean, me on this floor was pretty creepy, sorry about that, but this might be worse. It’s like Liz Lemon’s eyes are following me -not the viewer, me personally. How do use this thing? Is that Alec Baldwin winking? Is your water bottle personification of Alec Baldwin coming on to me?”

“Dude, you should be so lucky,” Adam said, relieved to hear the guy talking at all and grinning at the rapid-fire pace. “No worries on the floor thing, this seems like a pretty stressful place to work.”

The guy cocked his head a little, his perfect eyebrows going up as he glanced sidelong at Adam. “You don’t work here?”

He shrugged. “Just had an interview - accounting,” he said. “Kind of a long shot, but whatever, they called me back, you know? But I can’t really get a sense of the place, except for - you know, big. Corporate. A litle more real than the Goldman Sachs stuff, but -”

“A little? Goldman _Sachs._ Who _are_ you?” The guy started looking at risk for more respiratory issues, and as Adam patted him gingerly on the shoulder, the sidelong look delivered was more of a squint. A glare, really. It was...a little hot, if that wasn't a sleazy thing to think about a guy panicking on a bathroom floor. It _was_ sleazy, but those eyes...Adam pulled himself together.

“Dude, it’s okay," he said. "I’ll stop insulting your workplace. I’m Adam, Birkholtz, just a guy on the interview circuit. GS didn’t even call me back, I’m probably bitter. Points to you all, actually, that people here are this protective. What do you do?”

The guy still looks suspicious, and a little challenging. “I’m Justin, engineering. Research & Development. Demonstrations. Fun stuff. Staying as far away from accounting as I can get.”

“Justin…” Adam’s heart had picked up as the guy had gone through the list, so pointedly. There was no way. There was probably more than one black guy named Justin in the place. Engineers, even. That was racist, otherwise, right?

But Justin was watching him expectantly, and then dropping his bomb with glee: “Oluransi. You've probably heard of it. Did you really throw a urinal cake at that last guy?”

“He was about to take a photo. Dick move. You’re _Justin Oluransi._ You...own this place? You own this bathroom.”

“Yeah.”

“You owned that urinal cake!”

“I didn’t, like, personally purchase it, dude, it’s okay.” Justin’s shoulders were drawing together again, and he wasn’t grinning anymore. Adam tried to back up, get his mind around it, stop saying obvious shit.

But he wasn't quite done. “You’re a...reclusive, billionaire, genius philanthropist...” He gave his own squinty sidelong look, watched those beautiful eyebrows draw together in suspicion, and continued, “and you’re creeped out by Alec Baldwin? _Dude._ ”

“Fuck you!” Justin squawked, his shoulders loosening as he shoved Adam over. “ _You_ were creeping me out, what the fuck was that list?”

Adam snickered, bracing himself upright and elbowing back. “It was in the Time interview, I did my research!”

“Bullshit, you probably read that in the waiting room -”

“Pretty weird to have that article in your own waiting room, _Mr Oluransi -_ ”

“Oh god, don’t call me that, you’re fired -”

“I don’t even _work here!”_

“You wanna?”

“ _Bro_.”

“That can even be your job title. Like - numbers guy, bathroom defender, all-around bro. _Omnibus_ bro.”

“Ohhh, CEO vocab word.”

“Seriously," Justin said, "like, I have tons of people for scheduling or whatever, but I could use...for stuff like this.” He gestured vaguely, looking a little tense again.

It made Adam settle down, too, and think for a minute like his mom was always telling him to. “Stuff like, chasing guys with cameras out of the bathroom? That’s not a full-time job, man.”

“Chasing off press, talking me down, making sure we get to places on time - I know I have a reputation, okay?” Justin said, and Adam frowned, hearing the shame in it, the desperation. “I know I do dumb shit, but - I think I’d do less dumb shit if I didn’t get so - whatever. Like this. And nobody’s ever gotten everybody _out_ so fast, I’d pay you the accountant salary just for that.”

Adam started nodding before Justin was even finished, almost scared by his urge to protect this guy. Which was ridiculous to think about, really. He was _Justin Oluransi, CEO_. Not like, fragile or whatever, not some finely balanced ecosystem under threat.

But it did feel like that, a little.

“I captained my college hockey team,” he said, just as Justin was starting to fidget. “You can’t do anything dumber than a couple dozen teenage jocks, and honestly, All Around Bro is a pretty good description of chasing them through a season.

Justin spun around, still cross-legged, to stare hopefully into his eyes. “So you’re in?”

“I mean, there’s probably some HR stuff -” Justin flapped a hand dismissively, and Adam laughed - “but yeah, okay. I’m in.”

Justin put his fist out, and Adam bumped it, and then they hauled each other off the bathroom floor to find the human resources department.

HR makes them change the title, later, but Justin orders the business cards anyway, and Adam keeps them in his desk drawer to look at whenever the job is overwhelming. They are ridiculous, high-end paper with honest-to-god gold leaf, because Justin is like that. There's only one line, in flowery script.  _Adam Birkholtz, Omnibus Bro._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanons, please quibble over this with me:  
> Eric Bittle is the shortest Lieutenant Colonel the Army has ever seen, and the best friend Justin Oluransi has ever had.  
> Larissa Duan is a human disaster with incredible eyesight and perfect aim. Jack Zimmermann thinks love is for children, but something changes when Lardo catches up with him and refuses to make the kill.   
> Derek Nurse was once a Brooklyn flirt with an angry, sickly best friend; now he's a ninety-year old super-soldier with a mission to kill Captain America, which is just. Not chill. At all.   
> Chowder's secret is that he's always angry, Cap.  
> (Ford is Nick Fury and she isn't paid enough for this believe-you-me.)


End file.
